


Echoing Chamber

by nisakomi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Slice of Life, there is no svt only 96line
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-06-10 00:39:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6930898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisakomi/pseuds/nisakomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the box fits, break it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoing Chamber

**Author's Note:**

> psst!! if you haven't heard, there's a wonhui fic exchange going on~~ [click here](http://wonhui-net.tumblr.com/ntm) for details!!   
> i think i wrote this because buxiban-nim said ‘I LOVE YOU’ to me  
> i would dedicate it to her...but frankly this fic is Too Weird  
> maybe one day...i will feel like i have done something...deserving of her time  
> dearest buxiban-nim,  
> i want to say even if we didn’t like any of the same things at all  
> i would still have oodles and oodles of love for you  
> you’re very Attentive, and patient, and incredibly generous  
> you’re so friendly, and welcoming, and remarkably good at everything you do  
> you’re always funny, and honest, and unbelievably kind to me  
>  ~~also you’re really hot, hot damn~~  
>  the tsunTM is an added bonus, as is the fact that u and jww r basically The Same Person  
> i—  
> i like you buxiban-nim, i really like you  
> (*´o`*)～♡
> 
>  
> 
> working title: what doesn't happen in vegas

“Where do you want this one?” Soonyoung bounces the last of the cardboard boxes against his hip, the majority of its weight resting against his thigh. “Over here with the others?” To the left of the main entrance are four stacks of plastic bins and packing crates of varying colours and sizes, discrepant against the backdrop of the empty house with its clean, symmetrical lines all in white, black, and chrome. 

“What does it say on the label?” Junhui calls out, voice muffled by the thick walls and ceiling plaster separating master bedroom from living room. That’s right, the place has sectioned off bedrooms, and multiple floors, plural. 

For lack of a table, Soonyoung balances the crate in his hands against a wall. He peers down at the sticker affixed to the side of the box and is relieved to remember all he’ll find is Junhui’s precise and legible strokes, not Wonwoo’s messy scrawl. “Kitchen.” He reads out the Hangeul written neatly in permanent marker before spinning on the ball of his foot toward that direction and feeling a twinge in his lower back. 

“Well gee Soonyoung, I don’t know,” Junhui says, walking back down the hallway with his hands in the pockets of his black athletic jacket. “I obviously want the kitchen stuff in the bathroom, wouldn’t you?” 

“Yeah actually, I would.” He opens his eyes wide and nods earnestly while Junhui scoffs and whacks him in the shoulder with one hand. “Who knows, maybe if I keep the dishes there, Sookie might stop trying to bring a plate down on his own head.” 

Junhui chokes on his water. He tries to hide it but Soonyoung can see everything because the kitchen is open concept and because he’s grown eyes in the back of his head ever since he sprouted a kid. “How is your two-year-old managing to get high enough off the ground to reach the cupboards anyway?” 

“He’s very agile,” Soonyoung tells him, with the sagacity of a man who’s changed too many diapers or bottles at 4am. He sets the box down on the floor instead of the counter, unwilling to mar the shiny white marble. It’s not because it’s too heavy for him to lift it up, but the counter might be a little too high. The twinge in his back muscles returns, and he lifts one leg to the side to crack his hip. 

“Gets that from you then,” Junhui jibes, smile soft and eyes curved. He passes the bottle of water to Soonyoung after Soonyoung’s done adjusting the ball cap over his hair and patting down the sweat beading at his neck. 

Soonyoung takes three gulps and finishes the water entirely, screws the lid back on before tossing the plastic container back to Junhui. “He’s also very crafty.”

“Oh. That one’s definitely not you. Gets that from his mother, I'm guessing.” 

“How dare you. I agree to help and you repay me by insulting my intelligence? I’m hurt, Junhui, hurt.” 

Junhui laughs and uses the empty bottle in his hands to deflect Soonyoung’s finger jabs with ease. “Notice you didn’t argue the truth in that sentence?” 

“You’re right, Mihee _is_ smart,” Soonyoung preens, squatting down to slit open the tape sealing the box with his car key. “Smart, pretty, talented. I can’t believe I got lucky enough to marry her.” 

“Maybe you were cute once,” Junhui suggests. He leans over the countertop to watch Soonyoung flip open the flaps of one of only two boxes meant for the kitchen. 

“Excuse me, I’m still cute.” He lifts a wok out by its long wooden handle. “Hey are these _all_ your pots and pans? How soon are you planning to move in anyway?”

“Of course not, how am I supposed to cook over there if everything’s here? There’s no furniture or anything yet, I don’t want to sleep on the floor.” 

“You might want to get used to it. Do you know how much time I spent conked out on the ground in Sookie’s room?” 

Junhui arches an eyebrow at Soonyoung considering neither he nor Wonwoo really has the machinery or legal marital status to procure a child of their own, and pushes his elbows off the counter to cross the distance back to the living room. 

Soonyoung doesn’t really notice, too busy yanking apart the other box to reveal several small appliances. “You even packed up cutlery! I’m surprised you didn’t bring the rice cooker with you while you were at it. Are you sure Wonwoo’s not gonna notice half of your possessions are missing?” 

“Nah, it’s not like he cooks.” The translucent blue bin cover Junhui has in his hand shakes as he sets it down beside him. He reaches inside and his fingertips brush against glass, nails creating soft tinkling sounds as they knock against the frame. The tremor becomes something he has to temper with his other hand. “I might just unpack later, since there isn’t any furniture yet anyway. Are you tired? I’ll buy you a meal as thanks for helping.” 

“You bet your ass you will. You’re paying for everything now that I know you can afford a house like this.” Looking up, Soonyoung takes the time to appreciate the high ceilings, vaulted pot lights, palladium windows. Looking down, the floors are solid hardwood instead of laminate, stained greyish to match the colouring of the walls, built in cabinets, and countertops. All that’s missing is the rectangular dining table and exotic plants to make the place look like the inside of a minimalist real estate magazine spread. 

“Bit better than the officetel loft, huh?” The call of the photograph in the glass picture frame is tempting. All it would take would be for Junhui to crane his neck over the edge of the box and he could peer inside to see it again.

“Just a little. I mean, wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a house-warming party here. You’d actually fit people inside.” Soonyoung drops the toaster in his hands back down and claps. “I can actually bring Sookie here and not worry that he’ll his his head against something within seconds of his feet touching the ground!”

“Are you griping about the apartment we first moved into when we were broke university students? The same apartment that served as a roof over your head whenever you got so drunk one of us had to pick you up?” 

“If you’ve been holing up enough money to splash out on a place like this, yeah I totally am.” Soonyoung brushes off the back of his pants when he stands, keeps his hands behind him to hold onto his waist. 

Junhui picks at the corner of a box from his seat on the ground, eyes still on the contents. “My parents…they’ve had a lot of money saved up over the years for…stuff. It’s not like either of us have time to spend our paychecks on anything anyway.”

“Stuff like…a dowry?” 

“I think a dowry’s the one the girl’s family brings? It was for having a house and car to woo the girl with, so to speak, cover the wedding expenses, that kind of thing. Obviously that’s not happening…” 

“You can still have a wedding,” Soonyoung says and Junhui swallows quickly. “Go to Las Vegas. Doesn’t Channie have a friend that lives in California? I bet he could hook you up.”

He forces out a dry laugh. “I’m pretty sure Hansol’s in Florida and I don’t think Las Vegas is in California in the first place.” 

“Really? I didn’t know that. Well it doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, if you really want to, you can still have a flowery proposal, diamond ring, quaint wedding.”

“Yeah…” Junhui takes a deep breath. “How’s he gonna scrub with a ring on?” 

“Well, it's not like he’d be the first married doctor in the world, I’m sure you can figure it out.” 

Or they could not risk having Wonwoo's career ruined because someone asks what his wife looks like only to discover he’s married to a man. “Sure, whatever you say.” 

“What are we going to eat? I better call Mihee and tell her I won’t be back for dinner first, or she’ll rush home from work to cook.” Soonyoung stuffs his feet back into his shoes at the doorway and winces as he bends down to tie the laces. 

“Does she know you’re not at the studio?” The temptation to look at the contents of the box dissipates temporarily while worry seeps into Junhui’s stomach at signs of Soonyoung’s discomfort. He’d been fine for most of the day, but they’d done a lot of moving around, and might have exacerbated the problem. 

Soonyoung hums a nursery rhyme about bunny rabbit ears while he ties his shoes. “She knows I’m not really leading classes anymore, and she knows where I am now, yes.” 

“That’s good. I kind of feel bad about asking you to help, I don’t think you should be carrying anything with your back like that.” Junhui blinks slowly at Soonyoung using the doorframe to help himself stand. 

“It’s not like you let me do any of the heavy lifting. Don’t act like I’m an invalid, Junhui, you’re my last beacon of hope for being treated as a human. Even Jihoon doesn’t hit me as hard anymore.” Soonyoung lifts a hand in apology when the phone line connects, turning around and slipping out the door to murmur his plans into the waiting ear of his wife. 

With Soonyoung’s back turned, Junhui’s attention returns to the glass picture frame, which he lifts up with a weak grip. His palms hug the outside edges, fingers not coming close to the figures in the image. Physical photographs aren’t a common possession for him, but this was taken back when Chan was going through his photography phase, eager to collect everyone’s memories on glossy photo paper stuck between sheets of protective film. 

Wonwoo had told Jihoon and Soonyoung not to bother sitting through his white coat ceremony, but Chan had sat beside Junhui and let his hand be crushed by Junhui’s grip while he stared at the back of Jeon Bohyuk’s head and Mothra grew wings inside his stomach. 

He’d been introduced as Wonwoo’s ‘roommate’, and Wonwoo’s mother had looked at the two of them, clucked her tongue, and tucked Junhui under her chin and into her arms despite being at least half a head shorter than him. He had carefully hugged her back with panic in his heart, wondering if she somehow had x-ray vision and could read the words on the cool metal plastered to the skin of his chest. When he was released, Wonwoo was frozen stiff, and neither of them could hide the tears in their eyes. 

At the time he hadn’t understood, but Chan had slipped him an envelope of photographs a fortnight later and said Junhui could keep any he liked. Junhui had held onto just one, the one he stares at now, Wonwoo’s white coat draped around his slim shoulders, clean and bright, grey button-down form fitting and neatly pressed by Junhui two nights prior. In the photograph, Wonwoo’s eyes were shiny as they were cast some ways in front of him, lower lip caught between his teeth. Junhui had kept it because of how startled he was to realize that Wonwoo’s expression was from looking at him. 

The Wonwoo in that photograph would have climbed Mount Everest to make things happen had Junhui asked him to marry him. That Wonwoo had been convinced that as long as they were together they could overcome anything. That Wonwoo hadn’t yet lived with Junhui for over a decade, hadn’t yet realized that sometimes the greatest obstacle to overcome isn’t the world around you but yourselves. 

There are many many reasons why Junhui is not keen on Soonyoung’s idea of an overseas wedding, but the most important one is that Junhui is not so certain that this Wonwoo, the one in present day, he’s not so certain that this Wonwoo’s answer would be ‘yes’. 

“Hey, you coming?” 

Junhui drops the frame with a clatter. The glass holds up well, and the picture doesn’t so much as flutter. After one last look, Junhui stands. “Yeah, let’s go.”

“You don’t need to tell him you’re gonna be late back? I know you’re keeping the house a surprise but isn’t he gonna want to know where you are?” 

Junhui shakes his head. “He’s on call all weekend so he won’t be home until Sunday night, maybe Monday morning.”

“Oh. Well anyway can we go to an actual restaurant? Like one with air conditioning? I think I’m gonna melt if I have to sit outside in this heat.” 

 

❋

 

July is the hottest its ever been, according to the record books, and judging from the temperatures on the first day of the month, August doesn’t plan on losing out. Junhui lifts open the small square windows when he arrives home from work around seven in the evening, letting the weak summer breeze bring in sounds of traffic and smells of street food stalls. Around nine thirty, when the apartment is still a little too warm to move around in without sweating, he switches on the air conditioner to a low strength. Junhui doesn’t really mind the heat, but Wonwoo tends to wake up multiple times if the place gets too humid. 

It’s nearing eleven when Wonwoo arrives home, dragging off his shoes and dropping his bag on the sofa before collapsing into it himself. The lights are on in the tiny kitchen, but he remains prone for a few minutes before he can roll over and stand again. 

“You left the TV on.” His eyes are more closed than open. 

Junhui looks up from the spicy cabbage stir fry and doesn’t tell Wonwoo that the voices of the evening dramas fill the unoccupied spaces of the loft and make the empty flat feel less lonely. “Sorry. Long shift?”

“Yeah.” Wonwoo doesn’t expand on the point. 

“There’s leftover yookgaejang I was planning on heating up, unless you wanted to eat something else?” There’s always beef marinating in a plastic container in the fridge. 

Wonwoo shakes his head. The range hood whines loudly as it absorbs oily smoke from above the stove, pulling greasy fumes from his vegetables. The scent of chili peppers lingers despite its best efforts, tickling Wonwoo’s nose. Junhui doesn’t even notice the high-pitched warbling sound anymore, it’s been coming from the vents for so long, but Wonwoo stares and Junhui can see it from his peripheral vision, so he gives the contraption a whack to get it to shut up. The banging on broken things trick always works. 

“We should get that fixed,” Wonwoo mutters, sagging against the entryway with his shirtsleeves shoved high up on his forearms. 

‘We’ really means just Junhui, who isn’t at home much but is still around three times the amount that Wonwoo spends in the apartment. Junhui could do it. Bring it up with the landlord or call the service repair line to see what was wrong with the thing, maybe even take it apart himself. but it’s been broken for ages and it’s still mostly functional. In any case, he has a hope that he won’t need to use it for much longer. Probably, if he told any of that to Wonwoo right now, about one in ten words would be processed. It’s easier just to reply, “yeah.” 

“You know, don’t have to wait up for me to eat dinner. I can use the microwave.”

“I know.” 

It’s an all-encompassing kind of ‘I know’. Junhui’s aware of the fact that Wonwoo feels bad about keeping irregular sleep and eating hours, but he’s also aware that Wonwoo knows Junhui doesn’t mind. It makes him feel better to eat at the same time, because that way he can guarantee that Wonwoo is eating at all, eating properly, doesn’t give him a chance to be too lazy to prepare something. They’ve debated the subject so many times they have each other’s arguments memorized, and it seems a waste of breath to say them aloud when everything’s already known. 

“It won’t take me much longer, but there’s a while yet. Why don’t you take a nap and I’ll wake you up when we can eat?” Junhui turns off the stove and makes to check up on the rice. 

“Junnie,” Wonwoo says, stepping forward and cutting off Junhui’s path. There’s an unhealthy greyish tone to his skin, even under the harsh yellow of the lighting, his eye bags puffy and dark. Two on call days in a row usually means less than four hours of sleep in a forty-eight-hour period, but still clocking in faster than average surgery times, knowing the way Wonwoo works. His eyes are a little unfocused while he tries to stare reproachfully at Junhui’s nose. It’s one alarm bell after the other, but like the drone of the range hood, Junhui can only habituate to the problem. 

“Yes,” Junhui says. He gradually loosens Wonwoo’s tie from his collar, and carefully tugs apart the silk knot until it’s just one long piece of fabric dangling around his neck. The cabbage needs to be plated, but it can wait for Junhui to undo the top button of Wonwoo’s shirt, and then the second, so Wonwoo can look slightly more casual, to go better with the bone tired. The exposed skin of his throat is the same shade of pale as someone locked in a jail cell and unable to see sunlight. Junhui kisses it gently, and strokes his thumb under Wonwoo’s jaw while Wonwoo’s eyelids flutter to a close and he nearly falls asleep standing up.

“Be good. Rest for now and later we can eat.” 

“Eat now,” Wonwoo insists. “You’re hungry.” 

Junhui’s in pain from seeing how sunken and hollow Wonwoo’s cheeks look, and that trumps any hunger or sleepiness in him. “I’m not even done cooking, what would we eat?” He gives his forehead a good poke.

Wonwoo smiles and catches Junhui’s hand with his own. “We can always go back to the university diet of nothing but rice and hot sauce.”

They could, but they’re not in university anymore. If they were, Wonwoo might have had the energy to bite down around Junhui’s knuckle and follow up by smothering Junhui’s indignant squawking with a kiss, dinner left forgotten. They’d nearly burned down the entire building once like that, Wonwoo fucking him against the fridge while the magnet holding up their monthly schedule dug into Junhui’s shoulder blade, pork cutlets smoking on the stovetop while Junhui’s cum splattered white over Wonwoo’s chest. In their haste to cover the flaming pan, Wonwoo had singed off some of his hair and Junhui eventually broke down laughing, naked and deafened by the ringing fire alarm. 

For a few weeks, Wonwoo hadn’t been allowed back into the kitchen.

These days Wonwoo still shouldn’t be allowed in the kitchen, at least not until he’s got a cup of coffee placed into his hands lest he tilt over and fall asleep on the now mostly empty knife block. Junhui pats Wonwoo’s bum the same way he sometimes pats Sookie’s head and holds him by the shoulders to turn him toward the door. “There’s a sofa out there with your name on it, and you’re going to be sleeping there at night too if you don’t take a nap right now.” 

Wonwoo whines but he goes and he sleeps. He’s taken out his contacts when Junhui finishes setting the table and moves to wake him up. The spectacles he was holding have fallen between the couch cushions and Junhui fishes them out before dropping a kiss to Wonwoo’s forehead. He could leave him sleeping here, probably, but then Wonwoo would wake up in the middle of the night with a crick in his neck and a rumbling stomach. 

“Wha—?” Wonwoo mumbles else incoherently, sitting up and narrowly missing Junhui’s nose with his forehead. “I’m awake. Dinner?” The smell of rich broth wafts through the house, delicious and comforting. 

“Mhm.” They sit on adjacent sides of the square dining table, a bowl of rice in front of them each. “Are you working tomorrow night?” Junhui passes over a pair of chopsticks and starts with a piece of oi-muchim. They’re running out of the kimchi Wonwoo’s mother had sent over, he’ll have to enlist Mihee’s help making a batch sooner than later or there will only be the store bought kind to eat, and Wonwoo’s never really liked the mouthfeel of any brand. 

“I start at eight. If you can get off work at five I can pick you up and we can see about a present for Channie’s baby. I know you were going to go find something on Saturday but this way will be easier since we can look together.” 

“You don’t have to. You should catch up on your sleep.” 

Wonwoo smiles knowing that’s an impossible thing, with his sleep debt racked up as high as it is. “I’ll pick you up at five thirty then. Do you know if they decided on a name for her yet?”

“I’m pretty sure Jinseo has one in mind, but you know how Chan is, he’s convinced that one of his ultra-modern ideas will appeal to her eventually and that he’ll be allowed to name the kid or something.”

“I already stopped by and told obstetrics to take good care of them. The department’s going to associate me with them fighting over the birth certificate,” Wonwoo complains. He tears off a piece of beef with his teeth, all the fingers of his right hand supporting his chopsticks. 

Junhui snorts. “Better put your foot down this weekend then, choose a name for them so they have no room to argue.”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? They should name all their kids after me. Wonwoo, Toowoo, Deureewoo, Poahwoo…”

“Yes, I’m sure what Chan really wants is half a dozen versions of you running around his house.” 

“Don’t push your own fantasies onto Channie. I know cloning me sounds appealing but it would be very bad.” 

Having a second Wonwoo would be nice, actually. Junhui would send that one to work at the hospital, sleep at the hospital, eat at the hospital, and keep _his_ Wonwoo with him all day, in the car, at the office, lounging around the house. “If I wanted more of you the easier way of going about it would be to adopt cats.” 

Wonwoo wrinkles his nose, creasing the fold on either side of his mouth. “Meow.”

Junhui laughs and in his quiet amusement, is content that they spend the rest of the meal in silence. “You go wash up. I’ll take care of the dishes.” 

“You’re the one who has to wake up early tomorrow morning,” Wonwoo’s sentiment is interrupted by a yawn, and he lists sideways on his attempt to grab his empty bowl. 

“If I let you do them I’ll wake up in the morning to find the entire house flooded because you fell asleep at the sink with the tap still on. Since I still have to wash up after you, at least I’ll notice if you accidentally drown yourself in the shower.” He watches Wonwoo slink against the wall in his slow attempt at navigating toward the bathroom and shakes his head. 

There’s not enough dishes to take him very long, but after he’s climbed up the steps he finds Wonwoo already conked out in the middle of the bed. Either in his haste or his laziness, he’d ended up lying on top of the thin summer blanket rather than underneath, glasses askew and novel lying open over his face. Junhui changes into an oversized t-shirt, no trousers, before easing the book away from Wonwoo’s fingers, slipping in a battered bookmark, and placing it on the bedside table. He uses both hands to remove the glasses Wonwoo uses at home, folding them neatly before laying them beside the lamp. There are light red marks on either side of Wonwoo’s nose bridge from where the silicone pads pressed against his skin and Junhui accidentally wakes Wonwoo up while gently rubbing around the spots. 

“Was waiting for you,” Wonwoo murmurs while Junhui tugs the sheets from underneath him, in order to cover him just up to his sternum. He’s pulled into bed as well, Wonwoo’s eyes remaining closed as he blindly reaches to turn off the light. 

“You need to sleep more,” Junhui admonishes lightly, “don’t wait up for me.” 

“I want to wait for you,” Wonwoo counters, curling up around Junhui as soon as he’s lying down. The air conditioner keeps the air a pleasant temperature, but it’s still too hot for Wonwoo to be burying his face in Junhui’s neck, or swinging a knee over Junhui’s hips to tangle their legs together. Nonetheless, Junhui maneuvers his shoulder so it’s more underneath Wonwoo’s neck and comfortably pulls him in closer.

Without really arguing, they’ve had five disagreements since Wonwoo arrived home, about things in the house, about Junhui’s eating schedule, about Wonwoo’s sleeping schedule, about Junhui waiting for Wonwoo, about Wonwoo waiting for Junhui. 

People have broken up over less. 

But none of it is really fighting, and neither of them has the energy to be genuinely upset. 

They’re not breaking up. Every time Junhui thinks working so hard for what they have might be an exercise in futility, Wonwoo opens his mouth and pours bottled joy down Junhui’s throat. With a look he’s reminded, ah, this is what it feels like to be happy, right now, in this moment, I’m happy. A single smile and his heart palpitates at of how rapturous his life is. Wonwoo nestled into him like this and he believes, for the nth time, in all realms of human possibility. 

From his left, the clock radio’s green LED numbers flip to read 1:00 on the second day of the eighth month. Visions fill his mind, visions of carrying Wonwoo on a beach, one arm beneath his knees, the other supporting his back while Wonwoo’s hands were clasped around his neck. Junhui turns his head and presses his lips to the top of Wonwoo’s forehead.

He’s startled to find Wonwoo’s still conscious. Wonwoo cricks his neck bending it back, angling for a kiss. Junhui obliges, melts against him. It’s not particularly hungry, nor is it very romantic, but it feels right. “Sweet dreams,” he whispers against Wonwoo’s mouth. 

“Of course.” Wonwoo lowers his chin and settles against Junhui’s neck again. His right hand clings to Junhui’s shirt. “I always have sweet dreams because I always dream of you.” 

 

❋

 

As soon as the door opens, Wonwoo reaches forward and ruffles Chan’s hair as if he was nothing more than their junior in university, instead of three months out from becoming a father. The youngers, all of their younger friends really, have always been Wonwoo’s greatest weakness, and he treats all of them with the same fondness as Bohyuk, blood related or not. 

Giant pot of samgyetang in hand (“easy on the ginger, just in case,” as per Wonwoo’s instructions), Junhui follows Jinseo into the house. The timing on the soup had been perfect – no sooner had he turned off the stove had Wonwoo unlocked the door, ready to change from work clothes to something clean, stopping in the kitchen first to remark about the savoury aroma while hugging Junhui from behind. Junhui hopes the taste is at least half as good as the smell. 

He trails back out to the hallway in order to collect the watermelon from Wonwoo’s hands while he continues jostling with Chan about some old petty bet they had made years ago, and Jinseo chastises Chan in front of them for being a poor host. 

“Thank you so much for cooking food, Junhui-hyung,” Chan says sheepishly.

“We’re not guests so much as old seniors,” Junhui says easily, breezing into the kitchen and taking over food preparations. “I still think of this as underclassmen love.”

“It feels weird inviting guests into my house and having them be the one to prepare the meal,” Jinseo protests, but she can’t see her toes past her stomach, and relents. 

It takes him only about a minute to learn the controls of the stove, flipping the range on its highest setting to bring the soup back to a rolling boil. He keeps one eye on the pot, but turns his attention back to Jinseo. “I’m not the doctor but shouldn’t you be resting more? I promise I won’t start a fire if you take a seat.”

“I trust you but it’s fine, I feel pretty good. Light activity’s supposed to be helpful.” She supports her back with her hands above her pelvis, moving with the efficiency of a floor nurse as she sidles around to pass Junhui odds and ends from inside the cupboards. The way she instructs him on using the stove is clear and precise, and she helps him find what he needs in the fridge without any uncertainty. 

In her line of work, Junhui supposes, she’s used to being on her feet for the majority of the day, and forced to know exactly where everything is so she can find it at a moment’s notice. “Still, wouldn’t help to overexert yourself.”

Jinseo leans back against a counter “I can handle the kitchen. My mom and Channie’s mom come over to help more often than not and worst case scenario there’s always the restaurant.”

“Does Chan cook?” Junhui ladles soup into four bowls, plates fish, pork, and side dish after side dish (“all mother-in-law’s work,” Jinseo tells him reverently). 

She barks out a laugh, one hand resting on her tummy. There’s a wryness to her smile. “If I let him take over meals, we’d be eating ramyun three times a day, seven times a week because he doesn’t know how to make anything else. If I teach him, I still have to stand around supervising, so it’s easier just to let him do all the vacuuming.” Chan is at least reasonably competent at everything he does. It’s part of the reason he’d had so much difficulty sticking to a major or choosing a career. 

By the time Wonwoo had finished premedical, he and Junhui had lived together for a year, known each other for two, and, according to Soonyoung, acted like they’d been dancing around each other all of their lives. He’d shipped off to the army before either of them had made a move, and Junhui had moped at Soonyoung and Jihoon for the entire two year wait. 

“Is he…are you two dating?” Chan had asked, when Wonwoo had become the topic of conversation for the seventh time since he had Junhui met. Soonyoung had burst out laughing, patting his first year mentee’s head like he’d personally raised him well, before elbowing Junhui for an answer.

“Uh no? We’re friends? Roommates?” Junhui had blushed and wondered how it was possible that someone he barely knew could already ascertain his feelings when he was loath to admit them to himself. 

Soonyoung had snorted. “Hey, we’re friends too, aren’t we? If when I enlist you’re not missing me this hard, I say something’s up.” 

“No Soonyoung-hyung, no one’s going to miss you when you're on active duty,” Chan had informed him with the same tone as someone telling a child that their dog had ‘gone away’ and wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Jihoon had cackled and Junhui bought the kid morning coffee for a week straight after that.

They’d graduated, Jihoon with a job offer at a record company and good prospects of career advancement within the year, Soonyoung taking one last year to save up money from choreography jobs before opening his own studio, Junhui beginning a certification program for the third round of actuarial examinations. Wonwoo returned from the army, hotter than ever, and they’d continued renting together as had been the plan, both still with their head buried in books, only now Junhui had been made keenly aware of the fact that Wonwoo has firm biceps, firm abs, firm everything, and the knowledge that all their friends knew about his rampant crush. 

“Jeon Wonwoo! There’s a pregnant lady in the house and you better not let her be the one who sets the table!” 

“Coming!” 

Jinseo and Junhui share a look, before Wonwoo sweeps in, Chan on his heels, ready to carry food to the table. They chat work, Jinseo and Wonwoo about how to make surg floor nurses’ lives easier when they have to take care of eight patients at once, not always with the same attending. Chan’s surprisingly unfamiliar with health insurance pitfalls for someone married to a health sector worker, but he gamely listens to Junhui’s risk assessment analysis and asks about logistics from a computer programming perspective. 

Junhui’s made better chicken before, but the soup comes out perfect. He’d used extra ginseng, for the supposed nutritional value, but it hadn’t been overbearingly strong. There’s no wine, obviously, so they sip tea and take large spoonfuls of rice and stew together until all that’s left is chicken bones and full stomachs, stacks of empty dishes for the shiny stainless steel dishwasher.

“I can put everything away, I promise to try to learn your storage system so you don’t lose any plates,” Junhui swears. 

“Definitely not.” Jinseo shakes her head and slides her seat back, both hands resting on her abdomen, both herself and baby pleasantly full. “You’ve already done the cooking for tonight, we can’t let you take over cleaning as well. I’ll pull up a chair and make this one load the machine. There’s no actual washing involved, so surely he won’t break anything.” 

Smiling, Wonwoo slings an arm around Chan’s shoulder. “I don’t know…You might be underestimating his abilities to break things.” 

“We can help since we’re here anyway,” Junhui reassures Jinseo. 

She glares at Chan until his shoulders hunch and he shakes his head. “No, no, I’ve got the dishes covered,” he says weakly. 

Wonwoo pokes Chan in the forehead. “What is this…ridiculous…You were never this obedient in university.” 

With crossed arms and a pouty expression, Chan looks still like the indignant kid he was back at Yonsei. “Yeah well if I weren’t bratty back then you never would have gotten together with Junhui-hyung.” 

Junhui chokes on his tea. Hot liquid sloshes down the wrong pipe, and his hacking coughs mix with muffled laughter. He keeps his hand over his face to hide the fact that his lips are upturned but Wonwoo takes one look at the wrinkles around his eyes and narrows his own.

“Stop laughing, I’m pretty sure that’s aimed at you too.” 

“No, Junhui-hyung’s a catch. If it weren’t for you he’d be married off to some rich hottie from Seouldae by now. You’re lucky he likes you or you’d be a single workaholic asshole like that doctor in the old American TV show.” 

“Lee Chan!” Jinseo chides, but she’s stifling laughter too. 

“Ah, hyung, did I go too far? It was just a joke – you know that right?” Chan grins with even his molars showing and Wonwoo just nods and pats his head. 

The expression on his face is a strained smile, frozen in place with stiffened muscles, but no real lift to his cheeks. Wonwoo doesn’t usually force himself to smile anymore because a neutral look is less taxing, and Junhui hasn’t needed to use the curvature of his lips as a measure of contentment levels since Wonwoo started his year of internship. Under the table, Junhui’s foot taps Wonwoo’s shin twice. Junhui gets another forced grin out of him, but then Wonwoo looks up, their eyes meeting over the rim of his glasses, his dark eyelashes concealing the storm in his irises, and his expression softens, smile turning genuine. 

Wonwoo looks away first, using a nod to indicate that he’s fine before launching into an esoteric rant about the Doosan Bears, a topic that Junhui figures is a sign he should try to figure out a way for them to politely excuse themselves and leave. Despite knowing a multitude of trivial facts about them, Wonwoo does not like the Bears, largely because he doesn’t like baseball, and talking about the team is a practiced spiel he gives to department heads that still believe in nepotism. But he has a soft spot for the NC Dinos because they’re from Changwon, and Chan likes them because they use Crong as a mascot, even if he should support the SK Wyverns. Junhui’s heard the weirdly detailed run down of dates and player statistics before, privately, and asked if that was Wonwoo’s attempt at subtly hinting he wanted to go to Jamsil stadium, only to receive an affronted look about the sport as a whole. He figures it has something to do with the kiss cam, and how they’d never be able to go on a date to a baseball game and get randomly picked for anything other than a beer chugging competition. 

“You and Channie should take the baby to a baseball game,” Junhui suggests after the list of batting averages winds down. “Have you decided on a name for her yet?” 

“Soorin,” Jinseo answers quickly, “Lee Soorin.” 

Chan doesn’t squawk when his foot is stomped, but Wonwoo does squeeze his eyes closed and inconspicuously pumps his fist. “That’s a lovely name.” He smiles sweetly when the couple’s attention is turned back towards him. 

“We should get going, let Soorin and her mother get some rest.” Junhui rises to his feet and stands behind his chair. 

“You’ll stay for a while longer, won’t you? We haven’t even cut the watermelon.” 

Wonwoo pushes his seat in and helps Jinseo to her feet. “It’s for you two. Maybe save some for your mother-in-law,” he advises. 

“Besides, you have to supervise someone to wash the dishes, and by my estimate that won’t be a short exercise.” Junhui cuffs Chan on the back of the neck. 

They make their escape and Wonwoo natters on for a while in the car about how well lit Chan’s house is, the interior décor, their matching furniture. Junhui’s fingers pale with the loss of circulation from his tight grip on the steering wheel, jerkily shifting his head to check mirrors and actively avoiding making sounds more committal than wordless agreements. The observations fade into silence, brought on by Wonwoo falling asleep with his head lolled backward and mouth slightly agape. He’s left with only the crooning of ancient SG Wannabe songs from their pre-hiatus days, and the thundering voice of his own insecurities. 

Junhui remembers peeling a shivering Wonwoo out of their bathtub the first time he had lost a patient, cradling him in his arms while Wonwoo stared at his own hands and whispered, “I know it happens, I know we did the best we could do, I know it’s normal to feel upset but…”

He’d gathered him into his lap, smoothly running his hands over Wonwoo’s hair, from the crown of his head to the nape of his neck in slow even strokes. “Do you know that I love you? Do you know how much I love you? Do you know how good and strong and brilliant you are?” 

The tears that Wonwoo had been fighting back fell like rain against Junhui’s heart, no matter that they barely wet the front of his shirt. He’d been helpful then, able to draw out Wonwoo’s fears and worries when he became stony and silent. Talking therapy, though Junhui rarely had advice Wonwoo himself wasn’t already aware of, eased both their hearts. It’s not that Junhui can no longer coax the words from him, it’s that Wonwoo no longer has the words to begin with. Habituation, for one thing, but the greater difference had been the fatigue and world weariness which grew on him like a moss, until he was eventually covered in exhaustion and his complex thoughts had been replaced by simple tiredness that he sighed against Junhui’s neck. 

After nearly eleven years of studies, what Wonwoo needs is a break. Time not just to recover but also to rejuvenate – the kind of rest he requires isn’t just to make up for lost sleep, it’s to make him at peace. Junhui can’t give him that, but hell if that isn’t the one thing he wants more than anything in the world. He can only restlessly feed him, nurture him, look after him like a plant, but Junhui isn’t a bee and so he can’t transfer the pollen necessary for the flower to bloom.

“Wonwoo-ya,” Junhui tries quietly, after killing the engine. He unbuckles both their seatbelts when there’s no response, slides out and walks over to the other side. The car door clicks open loudly but Wonwoo still hasn’t woken up, so Junhui slips one arm beneath Wonwoo’s knees, the other around his back, and carries him out of the parkade. 

“Hnngh, put me down,” Wonwoo whines, rousing half way to the elevator. Junhui obliges but he still supports nearly all of his weight while they walk, slumped over as Wonwoo is against his shoulder. “It’s too hot to be this close.” He keeps his arms draped around Junhui’s neck. 

The apartment is muggy when they get enter, and Wonwoo rinses off the day of sweat and scrubs first, since Junhui beelines toward turning on the air conditioning unit. The bathroom door remains unlocked, and Junhui nearly smacks the door into Wonwoo’s face when he goes inside. Wonwoo has a towel around his neck, catching water droplets from the ends of his hair, and five years ago Junhui would have wolf whistled. Instead he hip checks Wonwoo into the sink, snorting at the affronted look he gets, and strips before Wonwoo’s even uncapped the toothpaste. 

While Junhui showers, Wonwoo brushes his teeth with his eyes closed, facing the bathroom mirror only as a matter of formality. He hums loosely around his toothbrush, and it combines with the warm spray of the water and Junhui’s own fingers scrubbing his scalp to leave Junhui feeling as soft as a marshmallow.

He expects to find Wonwoo reading, but instead he’s playing around on his phone, the thin blanket covering half his stomach and one leg. 

Wonwoo spots Junhui and drops his phone to his bare chest, whining, “It’s too hot,” and leaves his tongue between his teeth. 

It is a little too warm even for Junhui, who doesn’t bother putting any clothes on before shoving Wonwoo sideways to make space for himself. He groans into the pillow once before flipping over onto his back. “The air conditioning is on, so maybe if you lie very still and close your eyes…” 

The bottom part of Wonwoo’s fist connects with Junhui’s right pectoral muscle. The hand stays there, despite the warmth from the press of skin against skin, and Wonwoo sweeps the side of his thumb back and forth over the protrusion of Junhui’s collarbone. All of a sudden he rises up onto one elbow, staring down at Junhui with narrowed eyes. 

“What?”

“Hmm.” Wonwoo unclenches his fist and flattens his palm down against Junhui’s chest. Where his hand is fleshiest, just below the base of his thumb, brushes against Junhui’s nipple and Junhui shivers. 

The thoughtful expression on Wonwoo’s face turns smug as the corners of his lips pull upward. His hand wanders down Junhui’s torso, fingernails skimming lightly over his abs until it’s resting between Junhui’s thighs. 

“Weren’t you the one who was complaining about it being too hot?” Junhui arches into the hand cupped around him. He drags one foot up and sideways along the bed sheets to give Wonwoo better access. 

“In Eastern medicine, fighting heat with heat is a regular thing,” Wonwoo declares seriously.

“And to think,” Junhui pauses to lean sideways and pull a bottle of lube from the bedside drawer while Wonwoo continues to stroke him with deft fingers. “You were so tired just half an hour ago.” 

Wonwoo stops to pull off his boxers. “The day I’m too tired to get hard is the day I truly get old.” 

Junhui tugs him back by the arms until his own torso is trapped between Wonwoo’s hands, and he tilts his chin up to steal a kiss. “You better make getting sweaty worth it.” 

“I guess it’s a good thing that I know what you like, huh?” 

Junhui grabs hold onto the side of the mattress when he feels the tip of Wonwoo’s tongue prodding against his entrance. _Yeah_ , Junhui thinks, _fucking—_. Jesus fuck he’s glad he has Wonwoo instead of some snooty rich guy from Seouldae. 

 

❋

 

The August heat wave is briefly smothered by a particularly fierce rainstorm, which clears the air enough for all of the city’s residents to stream outside a day later, when it’s pleasant enough to amble down streets without feeling too faint to stand. 

“I don’t understand why you keep buying my mother presents,” Wonwoo says, fanning himself with one hand and reaching to take the iced coffee from Junhui with the other. It’s the humidity that really gets to him, the layer of stickiness adhered to his skin that’s only mitigated when the breeze picks up. 

Junhui has never explained his relationship with Wonwoo’s mother to himself, nor to others. It’s not particularly complicated. When she hasn’t heard in a while or is worried, she calls Junhui’s cell phone, not Wonwoo’s. When she wants an update on her son, she calls Junhui. These days she calls without purpose. He’d been chopping carrots for a stew when she last rang, and methodically sliced all of the vegetables while she talked about washing rice and the quality of cuts from the new butcher. 

“Teach my son how to cook his own rice,” she had advised before hanging up, “or you’ll end up having to cook everything yourself even when your hands are too arthritic to be submerged in cold water.” 

It had taken him a week to find time to go shop around for an electric rice cooker. 

“I like buying your mother presents, I don’t really have anything else to give her.” Not enough time for one thing, they live too far away for another, and Wonwoo’s parents staunchly refuse financial support from them. 

“You don’t need to give her anything! She’s your mother too, even if—” Wonwoo breaks off with a frown, angrily biting down on the plastic straw in front of his mouth. 

Even if legally there’s nothing that connects them together. Wonwoo could have sway at the hospital, but neither of them are allowed the right to be each other’s next of kin, much less have any of the multitude of rights and benefits afforded to other families. On paper, they are nothing to each other, on paper they’re roommates and nothing more. Junhui shivers despite the heat, and clutches at the ball chain around his neck, the weight of the metal suddenly becoming heavy. 

In a word, Wonwoo has described Junhui’s relationship with her perfectly. She mothers Junhui maybe more than she mothers Wonwoo these days, and Junhui calls her ‘mom’ in his head. That’s when things are good. When things get rough, he wonders how much of a strain he puts on her. This is her eldest they’re talking about, the perfect first son with his chic good looks and stellar grades, smart enough to get into a top university, competent enough to become a doctor. He has everything – everything except a wife and kids. 

Junhui wonders what she feels when people ask her, “your son, how’s he doing?”. Pride, first, when she tells them about his prestigious job and high-paying salary, all while brandishing pictures of his handsome face on her phone, showing off to anyone who is willing to stop and listen. He can picture her face falling after that though, some of the shine leaving her eyes, when inevitably the question of “has he gotten married?” comes up. No, she’ll tell say, not yet, but what she means is, possibly not ever. In those moments, does she wish Junhui would leave her son so he can attempt starting a family? No matter how hard Junhui tries, can he really make Wonwoo happy enough to not break his mother’s heart? “What a great catch, do you think he’ll give our family’s silly girl a chance?” A tittering, nervous laugh. “Who know, maybe! It’s up to him.” And that’s, well, a little bit of why Junhui keeps bringing her ginseng or helping in the garden. It’s his attempt to rush and catch Wonwoo’s mother’s heart, save it from falling and shattering on the ground. 

Her heart must be very well cushioned, for she’s never looked at Junhui with anything but fondness. She has a grandkid, Junhui supposes, probably will have multiple courtesy of Bohyuk. She has the knowledge that Junhui will follow her detailed instructions, making homemade recipes to feed her son. She has the love of all of these men, her husband, her two boys, Junhui. She’ll have a proper rice cooker too, if Junhui has anything to say about it, one of the foolproof kinds so that someone else can help her once in a while. 

He steals the drink back and takes a sip. “It’s because she’s my mother too that I want to do things for her. Take care of her, you know? Because she takes care of us.” 

“Ridiculous.” Wonwoo shakes his head. “What am I going to buy your mom? A house?” He laughs at the absurdity.

Junhui chokes. Speaking of new houses. He recovers with the help of Wonwoo’s hand thumping his back. “At last count my dad owns no fewer than six, including a giant country villa and one of the newest fancy condos in the city with the heated flooring and jacuzzi baths. What would she do with another one?” 

“I don’t know, you tell me,” Wonwoo grumps. He finishes off the last of the coffee, slurping up mostly air. After stuffing the ice into his cheeks, he tosses the cup into the trash. In the few short strides ahead, he’d somehow managed to lose Junhui. He spots him after squinting through the crowd, completing a full three sixty pivot on the spot, back where they’d been a minute ago, bent over and peering into a glass display. 

“What are you doing?” Wonwoo asks, puzzled by the ornate painted bookshelf Junhui’s staring at. 

“Let’s go inside and take a look.”

He squints at Junhui, not because he can’t see him clearly, but because it doesn’t make sense. They don’t need a bookshelf. “Where the hell are we going to put a second bookshelf?” 

“You’re the one that keeps complaining it’s overflowing and you have nowhere to put your books!” 

“Don’t make me admit I just like whining at you out loud in public, Moon Joonhwi.” Wonwoo pushes up his glasses.

“Too late,” Junhui mutters. “Look, there’s air conditioning inside.” He claps a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder and points up at where a pink streamer billows lightly in the stream of air coming from the cooling unit it’s attached to. 

“What are you waiting for, let’s get a move on.” Wonwoo speed walks through the open doorway. 

“Welcome, please let me know if there’s anything I can help you find,” greets the attendant. 

Junhui smiles wanly. “We’re just looking.” It’s more like ‘he’s just looking but I’m soaking all of this in’. Most of the furniture suits his style of modern but simple. A lot of straight lines and sharp edges – they’ll have to think about how to childproof corners for their friends now that they’re all popping out offspring. He listens to the sales clerk explain the current promotional discount with half an ear, fortunate enough to be more concerned about quality than price. 

Wonwoo taps his knuckles against the top of a white dining table, part of a set that comes with six sturdy four-legged chairs, fully supported instead of held up by the fake out metal frames that have become popular recently. It looks good, and Wonwoo seems to like it, even though he doesn’t know they’re on the market for new anything. “What are we doing here,” he mouths, taking care to hide his face from the store worker. 

Junhui shrugs. He already has a couch in mind, a plush black leather ‘L’ that he wants to complete with a specific set of cabinets. If he gets the dining room, he figures Wonwoo should be allowed to choose bedroom things. “Do you want to try out the beds?”

Wonwoo settles down with his back against the pillows to a bed with a high, arched, mahogany backboard, dealing with emails on his phone while Junhui tests mattresses. He squishes about a dozen with his hands and lies down on about half of them, the ones that have a little bit of give. 

“Something firm,” Wonwoo calls out, “for your back.” 

While he isn’t looking, Junhui scowls and rolls his eyes. He likes the cushiness of the softer beds, feels like he’s sinking into a cloud. He rolls over and deposits himself on top of one of the harder mattresses with effort, making eye contact with the shop employee. Because Junhui enjoys second guessing himself and everyone around him, he wonders what the kid thinks their relationship is. Does he assume they’re friends? Do they look young enough that it’s not strange neither of them are shopping with a woman? The thought makes Junhui sound inconceivably young, even to himself, all that worry about relationship status and what you mean to someone else. “Which bed do you like the most?” Junhui asks, eyes on the clerk to wait for a reaction. 

“We don’t even need a new bed,” Wonwoo says, putting his phone away. 

Junhui’s amused by the lines of bemusement on the employee’s face. 

“That one.” Wonwoo points at something a few rows away and Junhui follows him over so they can both observe the frame more carefully. 

They have never shopped for a bed together before. Back when they first started rooming together in university, they’d slept on side-by-side bed rolls covering the floor, partially because they were broke, and partially because it meant that the space in the upstairs loft could be cleared for things like studying, if need be. They upgraded to separate futons, downgraded to the floor again when Wonwoo came back from the army and was used to sleeping on hard surfaces, before transitioning back to the separate futons. 

After they’d finally “stopped being stupid” (Jihoon’s words), he’d spent a lot more time in Wonwoo’s bed, whether having his brains fucked out, fucking out Wonwoo’s brains, or just sleeping. It was while he was wrapped in Wonwoo’s arms one night, boneless and satiated from three rounds of increasingly less graceful sex, back pressed to Wonwoo’s chest, their fingers intertwined near Junhui’s bellybutton, that he figured something had to give. Junhui had gone shopping alone, and purchased their current bed on his dad’s money, not that his father minded. Wonwoo had come home after the delivery and suffice to say the new bedspring had been broken in over the course of one evening. They had been young then, had enough in them to also give their old futons one last fervent send off, although they’d had to throw the futons out instead of donating them to some deprived university student because the stains they’d created were never coming out. 

“Why this one?” asks Junhui.

Wonwoo stares at the frame that he doesn’t know will come to replace their current bed. “Because it’s black.”

“What?”

“Matches everything.” Well, it certain matched with the general colour scheme of the rest of the new place, but that didn’t make it a good reason to purchase the thing. 

“Matches…everything…” Junhui repeats.

“It has built in drawers and a bookshelf,” Wonwoo says. He squats down and sticks an arm inside one of the empty racks. “And it’s a good height.”

“That’s true.” Junhui can’t argue about the extra storage space, it’s a very nice addition that he hadn’t considered possible when it came to a bed. 

“Alright, I think we’ve strung the sales guy along for long enough, we should leave before he really gets dejected that we spent so much time in here but didn't buy anything.” 

The business will live. Junhui will have to come back some other time, but he’s going to be spending a lot of money in this store in the upcoming weeks, so he doesn’t feel particularly sympathetic. He takes another quick look around, memorizing the appearances and locations of what he has to buy before stepping back outside, where the noon sun is baking the sidewalks. 

“We shouldn’t have been enticed by the air conditioning,” Wonwoo mutters. 

“Why?”

“It makes the heat out here even more unbearable by comparison. Please tell me we’re close to the housewares place because I really don’t want to walk.” 

Junhui laughs and leads them to the place where all their tableware is from, as well as most of their pots and pans and other kitchen essentials. The wok that’s still at the old apartment, however, that was a gift from Junhui’s mom. He likes looking at home accessories because people always come up with very intricate ways to solve daily problems, many of them excessively elaborate when considering the trivialness of what purpose it’s supposed to serve in the first place. Avocado peelers, banana guards, a twelve-in-one zester, specialized spoon rest, a pasta measuring device. 

There’s a self-stirring mug that captures Wonwoo’s attention, and he’s equally fascinated by a bright orange goldfish-shaped egg yolk separator. Or at least, he pretends to be, squeezing the thing for amusement while Junhui spends half an hour debating the pros and cons of a rice cooker than can also bake bread. He moves on to a contraption that can slice entire cantaloupes in one go, studying it with bright-eyed intensity, full of wonder. 

They fight over who pays for the appliance, and the cashier staunchly ignores Wonwoo’s indignant squawking noses when Junhui gets his card to the machine first. Another thing, Junhui supposes, is that they don’t have a shared bank account, although for now it’s a boon because it means Wonwoo can’t ask questions about the downpayment Junhui made. He gets distracted dwelling on the furniture again, and doesn’t notice the cashier packaging his purchase into a flowery cardboard box and placing it into a huge white plastic bag. Wonwoo takes the chance to quickly snatch it away from Junhui, thanking the worker on both their behalves since it’s Junhui’s turn to be indignant. 

“No one needs to steam rice with something this fancy.” Wonwoo’s first instinct was to swing the bag, but it had wobbled in his hands, as heavy as it was, and he’d had to stop. 

“It’s just nice to have options.” Junhui bumps his shoulder against Wonwoo’s playfully, trying to get him to be less reluctant about the whole thing. 

Wonwoo acquiesces with a small smile. “What if she never uses it? I bet she’ll think it’s too complicated to use and leave it unopened in the storage for years.” 

“Nah, mom’s pretty up to date with electronics. She’ll like having buttons to press, and she doesn’t have to eyeball the water level anymore. Mom _likes_ gadgets, bought herself a new phone last week from the sounds of it.” 

“You just—” Wonwoo cuts himself off and stares. 

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure you just—never mind.”

Junhui lifts an eyebrow and whacks Wonwoo in the arm. “Anyway, if she doesn’t want to open it, we can use it when we visit and then she’ll be amazed by how convenient it is to have something that automatically turns off with the timer and can turn out beans or barely or bread, and she won’t ever go without it again.” 

For a moment Wonwoo does nothing but smile, and it fazes Junhui a little, uncertain as to what could have caused it. He wracks his brain but comes up empty handed, except for the literal thing in Wonwoo’s hands. At least his to-do list for the weekend is completed, he picked up the groceries already—

“Ah shit,” Junhui realizes with mortification, “I also still have to do the laundry.” 

“I can do it.” 

“No thank you, I don’t want more of my button-ups turning pink because you forget to separate whites and colors and toss in your red underwear with the rest of the load.”

“That was _one_ time!”

“I know, and I’ll never get those shirts back.” Junhui turns to look at Wonwoo’s forlorn expression and ruffles his hair. Wonwoo bats his hand away and fixes the messed up ends, but he looks a little less dejected. “Thanks for offering, anyway. I appreciate that.” 

Wonwoo tsks, and shoves the rice cooker into Junhui’s chest so he can place it in the back of the car. “Thank you.” 

“For what?” 

Wonwoo jabs a finger at the box. 

“Oh, the rice cooker…I didn’t buy it for you or because of you.”

“I know. That’s why I’m thankful.”

 

❋

 

The day starts off the way all of Junhui’s days start off, regardless of whether Wonwoo’s sleeping beside him or already gone to work or not yet home from work. He wakes up, rolls left out of bed, puts the coffeemaker on, slaps some water on his face. There’s rice porridge from the weekend that he eats with savoury pickled side dishes, and he checks for important messages or news on his phone while brushing his teeth. 

Junhui dresses in the same order he always does, stripping down to his underwear if he’s wearing anything before hanging the chain with two long rectangular army tags around his neck. Their ends are slightly curved, and stamped on it are the words ‘yun-guk’, a series of digits that Junhui has more often than not used as his alphanumerical password, ‘Jeon Wonwoo’, and ‘Blood Type: A’. On top of them today goes a white undershirt, a white button-up, a thin dark blue tie with white pinstripes. He loops a belt through the loops of his grey trousers and tucks the matching suit jacket over one warm because it’s too hot to be wearing it until he has to. 

It’s not until he’s collecting his keys that he notices something a little strange. On the calendar, Wonwoo isn’t supposed to start his shift before ten this morning, but he was gone when Junhui woke up. It’s not completely unprecedented because sometimes Wonwoo has to cover a shift, or he forgets to copy over a change in schedule, so Junhui picks up his briefcase and heads to the office without giving it more thought. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t ask Jihoon and Soonyoung on a rare occasion when they can sit to have lunch together. “Neither of you have seen Wonwoo today, have you?”

“If we had, wouldn’t the most logical place be here, with us, at lunch? I mean, not that the four of us ever seem to find time together these days but that would make most sense.” Trust Jihoon to be the voice of reason.

During the first two years of university, the four of them had spent a lot of time hanging out together. The four of them had few classes together, but kept in touch, ate together at mealtimes, and made sure no one was ever left alone. People talk about university, people talk about everything really, and Junhui had never bought into the hype. He knew the fact that he spent his first years in university with three inseparable friends was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him. 

They’d met at a combined business finances and health sciences MT, the four of them the only ones still standing at the end of a long night of increasingly more aggressive drinking games. Well, Soonyoung hadn’t exactly been sober, but he’d been mostly coherent, and they’d been spoiled by their seniors with the gift of actual pillows. 

Strictly speaking, it also wasn’t the first time Junhui had met Jihoon. They’d gone to the same high school, although Jihoon had always been a bit of a prick during his adolescence. He’d been mean to everyone, not Junhui in particular, but still, he’d been hostile and angry and not the kind of person other people wanted to be friends with, only the kind of person people wanted approval from. It had surprised him to be the recipient of sunny smiles and general warmth from a kid he had barely said two good words to in three years.

“People like to underestimate you,” Junhui had remarked in a pleasant tone, dragging his pillow closer to Jihoon’s. If he were completely sober, he would not have spoken the words, and nor would he have broached into Jihoon’s personal space. Jihoon appreciated the sentiment nonetheless, appreciated the fact that Junhui acted reasonably towards him despite having no reason to, and he’d reluctantly let him in.

“Who knew such a compact frame could contain such a drinking monster,” Soonyoung had chipped in, slurring his words a little and eagerly joining the fray. 

Before Junhui had gotten a chance to step in, Jihoon had smashed an empty beer can into the side of Soonyoung’s head, leaving Soonyoung’s ears ringing from the impact and Junhui’s ears ringing with the sound of a deep, rich, laugh. Cue longing glances while he was looking away, innumerable guilty wank sessions and wet dreams, but otherwise a friendship with Wonwoo that bloomed in earnest. 

It was one thing to have a crush on someone in your year, to be so physically attracted to them you had to angle your body away lest you get a hard-on in an inopportune moment, and another to become friends with someone who entertained your admittedly out there sense of humour, and who always gave you their undivided attention, looking into your eyes when others rolled their own. The more they spent time together, the more Junhui liked Wonwoo; the more Junhui liked Wonwoo, the more like turned into something closer to love.

“Hey, you haven’t lost your boyfriend or something, have you?” Soonyoung says it as a joke, snorting with disbelief at the thought. 

Jihoon frowns over a spoonful of maeuntang. “You’re not having…” He doesn’t say the word issues, because saying a word like that makes problems real, but his hand wave explains enough. The thing is, even suggesting the existence of such a thing casts doubt on perfectly healthy and functional relationships. “Right?”

“It’s not like that,” Junhui says quickly. It really isn’t, but even if it were, Junhui couldn’t tell them. He’s long felt that, and Wonwoo agrees, broaching the topic of relationship issues with Jihoon and Soonyoung feels like divorcing parents getting their children caught up in a mess that’s not their kids’ fault. It feels too much like splitting up the kids in a feud between warring estates, and it’s rare that their differences can’t be set aside with a conversation or two, some cooling off time at most. 

He and Wonwoo had gotten into a bad fight precisely once. Wonwoo had gotten particularly self-deprecating once clinical had kicked in and for weeks attempted to push Junhui away because he’d be stuck in medical school limbo for another five years. The straw that had broken the camel’s back was a series of grossly overreaching comments about what Junhui deserved. Fed up with Wonwoo unilaterally making decisions about their relationship that only hurt both of them, he’d agreed instead of pushing back when Wonwoo told him to leave, and had sat silently in a friend’s dining room for close to nine hours, at which point Wonwoo found him to grovel. Only, Minghao had stood at the door, one arm up to block the entrance, and yelled at him for a solid half hour, right in the hallway where his neighbours could hear the lecture. 

On their way home, Wonwoo had trailed after Junhui like a lost kitty, slinking into the shadows and making himself small and quiet, extremely weird for the person Junhui had always known to be full of confidence and self-assuredness. Junhui had sighed and taken his hand. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while,” a statement, not a question.

Wonwoo had nodded, sat on the sofa, but didn’t say a word. 

“Next time, please tell me.”

Again, a silent nod.

Junhui had placed a hand over the ripped knee of Wonwoo’s jeans and squeezed. “Say something.”

“Something,” Wonwoo had said, voice soft.

He’d snorted, but the look on Wonwoo’s face broadcasted too much fear for him to laugh. “When I say ‘I love you’, it doesn’t come with conditions. I mean I love you, and I want to do this for as long as we can go.” 

“Me too. For as long as you’ll have me.” Wonwoo’s fear had terrified Junhui, who couldn’t fathom why Wonwoo thought Junhui wouldn’t have him. He’d been more careful, after that, to try to show Wonwoo they were both in it for the long haul. 

“About that. I’m the one who will decide when that happens, if ever. Don’t force a premature timeline on me.” 

It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies from there, but Wonwoo got better at letting Junhui take care of him, developed some initiative over speaking about things he would normally consider passively. Junhui got better at pretending not to acknowledge things under his nose with the help of a bowl of ramyeon, and stopped trying to do every household chore in existence without help. 

Soonyoung gives Junhui a look. “Hey, you know, when we were at the new place and you said he wouldn’t notice random pots and pans disappearing…”

“No, he’s just tired and not the one in the kitchen usually. I’m telling you it’s not like that.” 

“What new place? Are you moving?” Jihoon wags a single finger, looking between Junhui and Soonyoung with confusion.

“Oh thank God, when he asked me to help him move and I didn’t know he had a new place, I thought he was leaving _me_ out of the loop.” Soonyoung laughs. 

“Uh, I bought a house.”

“You bought a house,” Jihoon repeats. 

“Yeah, I was going to I guess…surprise Wonwoo with it?”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“No wait,” Soonyoung defends, “It’s a nice house.”

“Wonwoo’s going to hate it.”

“Don’t say that,” Soonyoung screeches, desperately reaching out his hands like it’ll save Junhui’s face from forming a dejected expression. “There’s no way Wonwoo will hate it. First of all, it’s got the whole modern but simple vibe to it, plus it’s huge, and like, fifteen minutes from Gangnam Severance, tops.” 

“Ah. So you’re operating under the assumption that Wonwoo’s going to love receiving a house as a present because he will no longer have to commute an hour to get to work.”

“Yes?”

“What the fuck? Why haven’t you told him about it? How much is it?” 

Junhui looks seconds from breaking down, and Soonyoung can’t stop himself from reaching out and patting Junhui’s arm. “He just looks really tired all the time? And the money is there, it’s a long story, but the money isn’t a—”

“Wait.” Jihoon puts up a hand. “Wait let me process something. You’ve _already bought the house_ ,” Jihoon clarifies, snapping his fingers together on alternating words. 

“Yeah. It wasn't on impulse! I looked around for decent places, thought about what we’d need in the future…”

“Do you know what this sounds like?” Jihoon asks.

“No, please explain oh brilliant one,” Soonyoung urges impatiently.

“You know when couples get together and they have problems and they think, ah what we need to do is to settle down, let’s get married? And then they have a lavish wedding and realize hey all of our problems are still right there, well, maybe we can solve them by having a kid together. Five years later, when they finally get a tiny chance to breathe, they realize, oh shit, we still have all our problems, and now there’s a fucking kid in our hands that we have to raise together in a toxic environment because we never sat down and addressed our problems.”

“Stop it!” Soonyoung yells.

Jihoon whirls on him. “I can’t believe you’re being supportive of this! This is exactly the kind of shit that led to my divorce, and you know it!” 

“I do know it, and that’s why I think you should stop projecting your own relationship woes onto Junhui and Wonwoo. They already live together, a house isn’t a living breathing human being, and you have no right making him feel shitty about this.”

“Let’s just, not fight, this is really not…” Junhui sinks back into his seat, the light in his eyes diminishing to a dull matte brown. 

Soonyoung takes a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s all take a step back.”

“Fine.” Jihoon crosses his arms. “Then Junhui, explain. First question: why did you buy the house?”

“I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You don’t know why you bought a fucking house?”

Soonyoung shoves an arm between Jihoon and Junhui, acting as a kind of defensive barrier. “Let the man think!”

“I think…First of all I knew from the beginning where I wanted to look, so Soonyoung’s point about it being close to the hospital is right.” 

This tidbit does not impress Jihoon, and Junhui presses on.

“We’re in our thirties. People who are in their thirties don’t rent an officetel close to where they went to university but nowhere near where they work. That kind of thing is meant for university students.”

“Yeah but people in their thirties also don’t spring real estate property onto each other over a crisis of age.”

“Maybe the ones in relationships do, when they don't have anything else to give each other.” Junhui’s hand tightens around his cup. 

“That’s stupid. You can give each other yourselves. There’s nothing else in a relationship that matters.”

“Don’t be so idealistic, Jihoonie. The world doesn’t work like that in real life, you know.”

“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes at Soonyoung. “So what I’m getting is that you wanted a label for your relationship, one that wasn’t ‘roommates’, and you thought the best way to do that would be to buy a new place for you two to once again live together, only this time you own the house, so it’s what, house-sharing-partners? Remind me why you couldn’t have consulted Wonwoo over any of this?” 

“I was being serious when I said he’s tired all the time. He’s barely awake enough to eat, how am I supposed to sit him down for a conversation like that, much less go house hunting with him?” 

“Well that cut down commute time is definitely going to dramatically alter his current state of exhaustion,” Jihoon says sarcastically. “There’s grand, extravagant, gift-giving gestures, and then there’s this, and I’m not sure if it means you’re incredibly barmy or the sincerest person I’ve ever met.” 

“I think I kind of get it,” Soonyoung says. “Hey remember when you first started dating Yooah and thought she was it? The goal was you know, get married, have a kid, be a family. But Junhui and Wonwoo can’t get married, it’s virtually impossible for them to even adopt a child together, and there’s no real sense of permanency for them. You can stand at the altar and say ‘til death to us part’ but what do they have? A house to live in together, at best.” 

“Forever means nothing,” Jihoon gripes. “You can get married and promise forever to each other, but that means absolutely jackshit. What makes a relationship is the relationship itself, pure and simple, not what you call it, not what other people see of it. Getting married doesn’t change anything.” 

“But you _can_ ,” Junhui jumps in. “You can do it, and you tried it, and then after that you realized it doesn’t work.”

Jihoon doesn’t feel regretful enough to want to take his words back, but he’s coming to see things from Junhui’s perspective a little more. The stew in his bowl is nearly cold from all the time spent on discussion instead of eating, but he gulps it down with gusto. He makes a noise of contentment when he’s done, and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “It’s a proposal. The house is your marriage proposal. What if he doesn’t like it? What if you both move in but nothing changes the way you want it to? You can’t expect this to make everything different because it won’t.” 

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, Junhui hasn’t even told Wonwoo about the existence of this place yet.” 

“I’m going to have to do it sooner than later because the more people who know about this place, the more chance there is for someone to let slip it exists before he’s supposed to be aware of it.”

“Ooh very good.” Jihoon gives Junhui a high five. “Subtle. Might have gone straight over Soonyoung’s head.”

“Hey, I got that I’m a blabbermouth you don’t need to say it like that.”

“Well if you know it, don’t blab about this thing. For what it’s worth, Junhui, I don’t think he’d say no. I just think you need to figure out what want, and think about how you’re going to get there.” 

 

❋

 

“Where’s the toaster?” 

The question has Junhui jumping out of his skin. He arrives home from work expecting Wonwoo to still be gone, but instead he’s confronted by a Wonwoo with slightly dishevelled hair, wearing turquoise lounge pants and and a graphic tee. 

“Uh what?” Junhui asks, still dazed. “How long have you been home for?” 

“Since five. Got off work at a reasonable time for once and was kinda hungry.” 

“So you thought you’d make…toast?” 

Wonwoo shrugs. “Figured it’d be the least likely way for me to burn the house down. Also figured you’d make me something to eat for real when you got home.” 

“What happened to the ‘I can heat things up for myself’ Wonwoo?”

He blushes and scratches lightly behind his ear. “Well, gone to wherever the toaster’s disappeared off to, apparently.”

“Oh I know where it is,” Junhui says nervously. “I can show you. But do you want to eat something first? I’m kinda hungry too.” 

“Alright.” 

Well, that was fast. At this point Soonyoung didn’t have to worry about watching his mouth because Junhui was going to do the deed less than twelve hours after Jihoon had essentially warned him to think before he acts, or speaks. Too late for that now. 

Junhui makes fried noodles with chicken and broccoli, tossing in carrots and celery to be ‘healthy’. It’s quick and easy, and even though Wonwoo’s knife skills make Junhui terrified for the tips of his fingers, he’s fine at washing vegetables and even better at humming songs while they cook. Rather than plating anything, Junhui feeds Wonwoo right out of the wok, mouth unconsciously opening with every time his chopsticks are by Wonwoo’s lips. It’s slow going because they alternate bites, but it saves on time spent doing dishes, and it’s kind of cute, watching Wonwoo try not to make a mess all over their clothes. 

“Okay so which cupboard was the toaster in?”

“Cupboard?” Oh right. “Um, this is going to sound weird, but in order to find the toaster you’re going to have to get changed into clothes you wanna wear outside because we have to drive.”

“What.”

“I know it’s weird but it’s hard to explain. I swear I didn’t throw the toaster out, and we’re not headed to a landfill. It’s just…I have to show you, I really don’t know how to say it.” 

“Um, okay?” Wonwoo twists his mouth in a mixture of alarm and confusion. “Give me a moment to get dressed. I have something to show you too.” 

They meet in the car park two floors below ground, Wonwoo tossing something into the backseat before tucking into the passenger side of the car. His fingers twitch in anticipation, and Junhui follows a familiar path in the same general direction as Wonwoo’s workplace. 

“Did you hide the toaster in my office or something?” Wonwoo asks, one hand tucked around the grab handle just above the window. “Why would you— How did you even get inside?”

“Well,” Junhui says, “not quite.” 

Wonwoo scans the new building with increasing perplexity, the polished marble tiling in the lobby, immaculate mirrors inside the elevator, shiny lanterns lining the walls. When Junhui punches in the code into the keypad and lets them inside the house, Wonwoo’s confusion reaches a climax. He steps inside first, Junhui holding the door open for him, and after setting down the briefcase he’d brought with him, he takes the place in with a wary eye. 

Everything that isn’t matching white, black, or silvery grey is glass. There’s a cohesiveness to the details, from the shape of the light fixtures to the corners of the window frames. It’s very tidy. There’s not much missing except photographs and plants, maybe some decorative throws and cushions. It’s not lived in, obviously, and the white dining room table from the furniture store they visited a while back is a little too empty and sterile, befitting the hospital than a house. What it needs is the sprawl of tableware and stacks of to-be-dealt-with mail. It needs a book abandoned on the sofa, an unwashed glass left beside the sink, shoes at the doorway. What the house is really missing, what it desperately needs, is Junhui and Wonwoo. 

“What is this?”

“It’s a house.” Junhui shuts the door behind him, toeing off his shoes and padding down the hallway in his socks. “Come on.” 

He leads Wonwoo into the kitchen, switches on the hanging pendant lights, and swoops his arm in front of their missing toaster, sitting unplugged on the marble countertop. 

“That’s our toaster,” Wonwoo points out. 

“Yes.”

“What is it doing here? Where are we?”

“Like I said,” Junhui folds both hands behind his back, “it’s a house.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Whose house?”

Junhui doesn’t miss a beat. “Ours…?”

“Our house,” Wonwoo repeats. He pivots on his toes, arms spread out. Overhead are sleek profiled cabinets, painted white. The fridge and range hood are cold chrome, as is the dishwasher, the stove, the oven, the microwave. He taps the side of the kitchen island. “This is not our house. We just left our house to come to this mysterious place, which you have yet to explain. Why is our toaster in the middle of a random house in Gangnam, and why do you think it’s ours?” 

“Because I bought it. I bought us a house. To be precise, I bought us this house.” 

Wonwoo blinks. “Haha. Funny joke.”

Junhui slowly winds the cord for the toaster into a neatly folded bundle, tying it off before pushing it up against the wall. There’s still a lot to put in place, and that’s not even considering everything that’s still left in the apartment. “It’s not a joke. I thought it’d be nice if we had a place of our own, instead of renting the loft out for the rest of our lives, so I bought us this house.”

“Junnie…why?”

It all comes tumbling out. Everything from feeling dreadful about exhausted Wonwoo looks, to his fears that they were stagnating because they no longer had anything to say to each other. He repeats his concerns from lunch with Soonyoung and Jihoon nearly word for word, and then adds on more and more, and all of it Wonwoo distills into a single sentence. 

“So you bought a house because you were afraid you weren’t enough for me.” And that’s about the sum of it. Wonwoo snorts. “That’s ridiculous, but also kind of sweet.” 

People with insecurities make mistakes. Normally though, they’re not of Junhui’s house buying calibre. 

“You know what, let me just show you what I had, okay?” 

Junhui trails behind Wonwoo to where the briefcase is, and is presented with a leather-bound folder containing two sheets of thick, high-quality paper. The red and blue logo of the Korean Medical Association catches his attention. “This is…”

“That’s right, officially presented and hired this morning. I’m the attending now, and I have control over my own shifts and instead of being considered in-training, it’s full fledged. We did it.” 

“You did it,” Junhui breathes, “that’s…you’re finished. You’re a doctor. Not a resident, not...”

“ _We_ did it. Nothing about me would have finished any of that if it weren’t for you feeding me, clothing me, taking care of me when I was the one who fell ill. That’s why this house is ridiculous, Junnie. You waited for me to get my head out of my ass, you waited for me to come back from the army, you waited for me to finish my degree, and then through the entirety of residency. You waited, and waited, and you think you’re the one who isn’t enough? I’ve always been trying to catch up to _you_. I don’t need anything other than you. Not a house, not a car, nothing. Just you.”

Junhui closes the folder back together and sets it down on the couch. He takes a step forward and Wonwoo meets him halfway, their eyes fluttering to a close, their lips crashing against each other’s like ocean waves on a rocky shore, a searing kiss where there bodies are joined everywhere they can touch. Junhui smiles, opens his eyes again, and is shy when he speaks. “Does this mean you don’t like the house? I haven’t even shown you all of it, there’s something I want you to see.” 

“I cannot believe you bought us a house.” 

Wonwoo’s comment is ignored. He gets dragged by the hand to where there are steps to the roof, yanked up the stairs until they’re in the spot that’s way better than any balcony. 

“I was thinking we can put a telescope over there, maybe drag the sofa from the apartment up. On warm nights like this one just sit out here for as long as we want. It’s not outer space, but I mean, you can stargaze as a hobby, even if you don’t end up in a spaceship on the way to Mars.” 

“I forget, sometimes, that I told you about wanting to be an astronaut as a kid. I forget you know all of my secrets.” The look he gives Junhui is fond however, full of nostalgia as he reminisces about his favourite childhood book. It had been about the stars, full of vivid pictures of all the main constellations.

Wonwoo presses his mouth to Junhui’s face five times. Once on the forehead, to the right of the centre of his face. Junhui makes a quiet noise in the back of his throat, one hand wrapped around Wonwoo’s wrist, the other clinging tightly to the fabric at the back of Wonwoo’s shirt.

To Junhui’s cheek, Wonwoo merely brushes his lips against the skin, gentle and delicate with his pressure. One kiss each to the moles above his lip, both right and left side, dodging away from Junhui’s insistent mouth. The last place his lips touch is Junhui’s chin. Connect the dots and tilt your head and the moles on Junhui’s face are shaped not unlike Cancer, Wonwoo’s starsign. He doesn’t believe in things like fate or destiny, not even in life coming full circle, but with something like this he’s willing to believe, because he’s willing to believe in him and Junhui. 

Junhui wrinkles his nose, and Wonwoo figures six isn’t a bad number, leaving a kiss to his nose bridge just because Junhui’s cute. He holds him close, chin resting on Junhui’s shoulder, Junhui’s chin resting on Wonwoo’s shoulder. Standing like that, it’s easy to see, two people hugging stand close to watch over each other’s backs. 

“I like the house,” Wonwoo says abruptly. “I guess we can keep it.”

Junhui curls into himself when he laughs, both meek and relieved at the same time. “Sorry it’s such a hardship.” 

Wonwoo laughs. “Are you still worried?” He lifts Junhui’s head up with a finger beneath his chin. 

“I don’t think it’s so easy for me just to suddenly not be scared.” 

“That makes sense.” Wonwoo’s finger slips under Junhui’s shirt collar, and lifts the metallic ball chain up, exposing his own army tags around Junhui’s neck. “Emotions are sensationalist, they’re not meant to be rational or rationalized. But you wear these all the time, and it makes me think, logically, that our feelings are still the same. It’s not that they haven’t changed, but our hearts are still warm.” 

Wonwoo drops them down against Junhui’s chest and digs something out of his pocket. Tied to the back of the carrying clip holding all of Wonwoo’s hospital and medical badges is the jade talisman with Junhui’s family name melded on with silver, the one his mother had brought over as a gift for Wonwoo years and years ago. 

“I’d buy you a diamond ring. I’d buy you twelve if you wanted,” Wonwoo murmurs. “But I can’t wear them at work so I’ve just been carrying this around in my pocket. It’s not like they match the dog tags but we have our names with each other all the time right?”

“The feeling it gives is like we’re married,” Junhui comments, combing his thumbnail through the red string before feeling the smooth green stone with the back of a knuckle. 

“Aren’t we? Do we need a certificate for that? What we have, isn’t it close enough?” 

Junhui shakes his head. “Not just ‘close enough’. Good. What we have is good, it’s good for us, and that makes it good, period. It makes me happy.” 

Wonwoo squeezes Junhui’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> with thanks to m and n and d, my sparkly princess, favourite child, and ducky. i love u all very deerly
> 
> i’ve been itching to write wonhui A Lot   
>  but all of the seven billion things i want to write aren’t really short enough for me to finish in a day   
>  and because, as you all know, i get hives when i have to leave something unfinished   
>  i kinda said fuck it and didn’t start anything i should be working on _(:c」∠)_   
>  s: i have not forgotten the jikwan   
>  i: i know i’ve only written 1 out of the 10 junhoon fics i said i’d write you, and u deserve all the soonhui in the world and more...u deserve everything u know, like lsm as ur first love and ksy as ur husband and lc as ur child, but most importantly happiness—   
>  n: i know, i know, break up wonhui, mingming fic, josh/hosh red string of fate, probably in the reverse order   
>  d: yes ur junhoon is also on the agenda
> 
> conveniently this is going up for svt's 1 year anniversary...it's been 365 days but i still cannot believe they debuted!! thank you for >1200 days of joy kids, congrats c:


End file.
